I wrote here on Sunday morning that I would probably have no further comments to make about the Stoker Awards weekend until enough time had passed that anything I would have to say would be historical, a looking back after my return home rather than something written during the heat of the event.

It turned out that I was wrong.

For after I’d made my goodbyes and headed to the airport to catch my 2:00 p.m. United flight which would end up with me arriving in Dulles slightly after midnight, after I’d twittered that I guessed the gathering of the tribe was over, at least for me, after I bumped into Jeff Strand and Lynne Hansen making their own return trip home and we sat for awhile and talked of past and future cons, I heard an announcement come over the loudspeaker—United was seeking a lone volunteer to yield his or her seat for another passenger in exchange for a coupon good for one round-trip ticket to anywhere United flew within the contiguous United States.

I dashed to the front of the crowd, and said, hey, I’m your man. Why? Well, for one thing, I’ve been going to an awful lot of cons. The Nebulas in April, now the Stokers, next month Readercon, the month after that the Montreal Worldcon, and I’d sort of decided that attending this year’s World Fantasy Convention in San Jose was iffy, especially considering I wanted to save cash for next year’s Worldcon in Melbourne. Before making this Stoker trip, I’d already decided that if offered a chance for a free future flight, I’d take it.

The problem was, my flight was a complicated one, in that I had to get to Denver in time to catch the fight which would bring me home. There weren’t any later Burbank flights which could accomplish that, and if I was bumped, I’d have to spend the night. If you can put me up in the Marriott that’s only a few hundred yards away, I’ll take the deal. And since I turned out to be the only volunteer, they said, no problem.

Unlike the normal bumpee, who’s stuck in a strange hotel surrounded by anonymous faces, I ended up back in the hotel in which I’d just spent three nights, a hotel where dozens of my friends were still continuing the festivities of the weekend. So … I left the Marriott at around 12:30, and returned a little more than two hours later, to the bemusement of the desk clerk who’d just checked me out. I explained my brief adventure at the airport to various friends, put in a few hours work on SCI FI Wire, since my office is wherever I can open a laptop, had dinner with nine friends (and Vince Liaguno, who’d just won a Stoker the night before, picked up the tab for the entire party!), remained in the restaurant chatting for hours, got further work done on Wire, walked into the Stoker suite to discover the remaining crew halfway through the season premiere of True Blood, and so not to have any surprises spoiled for what was being DVR’d at home, quickly backed out of the room, looked in the bar, where I found Rocky Wood, had a pleasant hour-long conversation with him, and then tucked into bed after setting a wake-up call for 5;30, assuming I’d be beginning my journey once again the following morning on a 7:29 a.m. flight.

Once more, I was wrong about what fate had in store for me.

I couldn’t sleep, waking at 3:15 in the morning. I started working on SCI FI Wire again, figuring I could get in a couple of hours. Then, at 5:00 a.m., my cell rang, and I almost didn’t answer it, since it was an 800 number, and I’ve occasionally gotten spam calls. But then I remembered I was traveling and had left that number as my contact info, so I figured I’d better answer. And it turned out to be United, telling me not that my morning flight was being delayed, but that it had been completely canceled. And get this—there was no other flight out of Burbank which would get me back to Dulles today, only to BWI or National, neither of which had my Jeep waiting for me. The only way for me to get home was to fly out of LAX at 1:57 p.m., which I said could only happen if United paid the travel cost for me to make it to an airport—around $95 away by limo or cab.

They agreed.

Which meant, once travel time was figured out, that I learned I at 5:30 a.m. that I didn’t have to leave the hotel until 10:00, instead of 6:00 as originally planned. So I put out e-mail and twitter feelers for breakfast partners and then got back to work on Wire. No one was in the mood for food, but Stephen Jones and Mandy Slater were up for meeting in the lobby at 8:00 so I could pump them on how their dinner at Richard Matheson’s house had gone the night before.

(Trust me. You don’t want me to to pass on the details. You’d be much too jealous to live.)

In any event, we sat and talked for around 45 minutes, after which Mandy snapped the picture below to prove that this was indeed the Stoker Awards weekend which would never end.

To further prove that the Burbank Marriott Airport Hotel had become the Hotel California (I’ve heard a lot of those jokes over the past 24 hours), while out front I ran into John and Colleen Sutherland, who were heading off for a five-hour bus tour of L.A. (John and Colleen had also been part of that dinner party of ten the night before.)

Then I had another healthy breakfast—granola with low-fat yogurt and fresh fruit, identical to the brunch I’d had with Ellen Datlow the day before—and went back to the room to continue working on Wire down to … well, you know … the wire. Then I headed to LAX in the back of a limo, wondering what other airline mishap would keep me in California.

Would my LAX flight be canceled? Would United be looking for volunteers to be bumped once more so I could earn a further free future flight? Would the TSA whisk me away after learning that I’d been nominated for a Stoker?

None of the above.

And so I sit in a great silver bird in the sky, typing away about the complicated chain of events which gave me a magical extra day, figuring that this time I’ll be getting home on the proper side of midnight, just in time to upload this when it’s still Monday. (Which I’m doing right now.)

For a while, this looked like it was going to be the Stoker Awards weekend that never ended.

And you know something? Considering the company I was keeping, I’m absolutely fine with that.